News and views about the implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 and other legislation, schemes and policies impacting the Right to Education of India's Children.

Social Jurist, an NGO, has approached the Supreme Court to
challenge the Delhi High Court verdict, which had held that the Right to
Education (RTE) Act was not applicable to nursery admission in unaided
private schools.

In its appeal, Social Jurist claimed the high court had erred in
holding that the Act applied only to admissions of children between the
ages of 6 and 14. The NGO had been the petitioner in the case before the
high court.
In its petition before the apex court, the NGO stated that the HC was
not correct in declaring that Section 13 of the Act was formulated in
context of rampant screening practices adopted by private unaided
schools in nursery admissions. “It was to correct this mischief that the
said provision was incorporated,” the appeal states.
The HC had on February 19 dismissed its petition which challenged the
points-system followed by schools in nursery admissions. The high court
bench headed by the Chief Justice had, however, asked the Centre to
consider amending the Act to include nursery education and said that the
schools cannot be allowed to run as ‘teaching shops’ as it would be
‘detrimental to equal opportunity to children’.
“Though we have held that the RTE Act is not applicable to nursery
schools, in our opinion there cannot be any different yardstick to be
adopted for education to children up to the age of 14 years irrespective
of the fact that it applies to only elementary education,” the court
had noted in its verdict.

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court verdict that the Right to Education
(RTE) Act is not applicable to nursery admission in unaided private
schools has been challenged in the Supreme Court.

An NGO, Social Jurist, has approached the apex court, saying that the
high court erred in law in holding that the Act applied only in the
matter of admission of children between the age of 6 years to 14 years
and is not applicable to nursery admission.

"The Delhi High Court has clearly erred in law in holding that the
provisions of Section 13 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory
Education Act, 2009 apply only in the matter of admission of the
children between the age of 6 years to 14 years and are not applicable
to the admission of children below 6 years in unaided private schools,"
the NGO submitted in its petition.

"Section 13 of the Act was formulated in the context of rampant
screening practices being adopted by the private unaided schools in
nursery admissions which had resulted in a comprehensive round of
litigation in the high court. It was to correct this mischief that the
said provision was incorporated," the petition said while challenging
the high court verdict.

The high court had passed the verdict on February 19, holding that
the Right to Education (RTE) Act and subsequent government notifications
were not applicable to nursery admission in unaided private schools.

It had, however, asked the Centre to consider amending the Act to
include nursery education as well, saying that the schools could not be
allowed to run as "teaching shops" as it would be "detrimental to equal
opportunity to children".

"Though we have held that the Right to Education Act is not applicable
to nursery schools, in our opinion there cannot be any different
yardstick to be adopted for education to children up to the age of 14
years irrespective of the fact that it applies to only elementary
education," it had said.

"It is the right time for the government to consider the applicability
of the Right to Education Act to the nursery classes as well, as in many
of the states admissions are made right from the nursery classes and
the children so admitted are automatically allowed to continue from
class-I.”

"In that sense, the provisions of Section 13 would be rendered
meaningless insofar as it prohibits screening procedure at the time of
selection," it had said.

NEW DELHI: Tasked with protecting India's 440 million children, the national
child rights commission is instead mired in controversy with
allegations of professional impropriety and financial irregularities
against three members including its chairperson.

National
Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) chairperson Shanta
Sinha, whose term ended on Thursday, is facing conflict of interest
charges and has also been accused of keeping some members in the dark on
financial decisions. Two other members are facing allegations of
running private businesses and claiming travel and phone expenses from
the commission.

NCPCR members Vinod Kumar Tikoo and Yogesh Dube had complained to National Advisory Council chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the women and child development ministry between November 2012 and March 2013 that Shanta Sinha
was promoting certain NGOs and keeping the commission in the dark on
decisions related to disbursement of funds and advising the Justice
Verma panel on the anti-rape law.

Dube had recommended that the
Bal Bandhu scheme, funded under the PM's relief fund, for Naxal
affected areas, be wound up as it was a duplication of the government's
Bharat Nirman Volunteer programme. So far, about Rs 4.5 crore have been
given for the scheme. Similar objections were raised by members about a
J&K project on child rights and assessment of Right To Education
Act. When contacted, Sinha refused to comment on the allegations.

But the two members who have been on a letter-writing spree have also
been at the receiving end. In a letter by four child rights NGOs -- Bal
Adhikar Abhiyan, HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, Association for
Development, and Child Rights and You -- in April, it was alleged that
Tikoo and Dube were running businesses and claiming reimbursements of
travel and phone expenses from the commission.

The complaint to
the PMO and the WCD ministry alleged that Tikoo was running a business
of stoles, shawls and other garments. The letter also claimed that
Tikoo's business address and phone number was the same for which he was
claiming house rent and phone allowance from the commission. When
contacted, Tikoo rubbished the allegations, claiming that the complaint
could be "retaliation" for raising his voice against "wrongdoings".

Incidentally, a PIL is pending in Delhi High Court since 2011
challenging Tikoo and Dube's appointment on the ground that they had
scarce training and experience in the field of child rights.

Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan directed the state education
secretary to ensure the enrollment of 70 underprivileged children from
Goregaon in private schools under the Right To Education (RTE) Act.
"Although according to RTE, 25 per cent seats at the entry level are to
be reserved for underprivileged children, no schools are following the
rule. We are trying to get admission for these 70 kids since October
last year but we have been unable to secure admissions for them," says
Avisha Kulkarni, director, DSSKulkarni further adds, "The income
certificates for proving their poverty level would lapse by the end of
March. Thus it was necessary to take some action before that. After
trying with various government departments, we finally spoke to CM. We
are hoping that these poor kids mostly from the slums get admissions
soon."Members of Goregaon-based organisation Desh Seva Samiti (DSS),
along with Vinod Tawde, leader of opposition, had met Chavan at Vidhan
Parishad on Tuesday.

Private, unaided schools here, in a meeting held Friday, decided to charge 70 to 75 per cent of the total school fees from students admitted under the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) quota.
The Independent Schools Association (ISA) called the meeting to decide about the EWS seats. They took the decision after considering the notification issued by the UT Administration in 2005.
The 2005 notification states that schools must reserve 15 per cent of their seats under the EWS quota and charge nominal fees from them. However, under the RTE Act, schools have to reserve 25 per cent seats under EWS quota.
ISA president H S Mamik said, "The UT Education department has decided to give us reimbursement for only 10 per cent EWS students, which means they have included 15 per cent EWS quota in the 25 per cent section under the RTE Act. Thus, in case of the remaining 15 per cent, we have decided to charge 70 to 75 per cent of the fees."
"The meeting also witnessed a lengthy discussion on the word 'nominal' mentioned in the UT Education department's notification. Finally, we decided that EWS students to be admitted under 15 per cent quota will be charged 70 to 75 per cent of the schools' fees", added Mamik.
Moreover, the schools also said they were ready to admit EWS students but added that the UT Administration should reimburse their pending bills for over two and half years.
After April 10, all vacant seats under the EWS quota will get converted into the general category.
- See more at: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/pvt-schools-to-charge-ews-students-7075-per-cent-of-fees/1098349/#sthash.cib52qrd.dpuf

New Delhi, April 5:
The Supreme Court today referred to a larger bench a writ petition
challenging the constitutional validity of the Right to Education Act
that reserves for the poor 25 per cent seats in most schools.

A bench of
Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra sent the matter to a larger
bench as the Federation of Public Schools, an association of over 350
private schools, claimed that the act violated the constitutional
rights guaranteed to private unaided institutions to run schools
without any government intervention.

The 25 per cent
quota applies to most schools, including private unaided non-minority
institutions. A three-judge bench of the apex court had upheld the
validity of the act last year.

The Supreme Court
has now sent the petition to a three-judge bench which is expected to
eventually forward it further to a five-judge bench since a three-judge
bench had already ruled on the subject in 2012.

The matter could
not be directly referred to a five-judge bench today because a two-judge
bench cannot recommend cases beyond a three-judge bench.

The petition,
filed through counsel Kamal Gupta, claimed that the court did not
consider earlier rulings by two Constitution benches which said the
state cannot interfere in the affairs of private schools.

Such interference
goes against constitutional provisions that enshrine equality before law
and prevent the state from discriminating between citizens on the
basis of religion, caste, or other considerations, the petition said.

The petitioner
submitted that the three-judge bench in 2012 had said the act applied to
non-minority unaided educational institutions and held it to be
unconstitutional insofar as minority-run educational institutions were
concerned.

The petition said
the applicability of the act to private unaided educational
institutions “abridges the unfettered fundamental rights of such
institutions to establish, run and administer their educational
institutions, which include the right to admit the students of the their
own choice”.

“Similarly, the
provisions of the RTE Act… at least insofar as it obligates private
unaided schools to admit at least 25 per cent students from
economically weaker and disadvantaged sections, are unconstitutional and
are liable to be declared void,” the petition said.

According to the
petitioner, when a substantial question of law on the interpretation of
the Constitution arises, it should be decided by a bench consisting of
at least five judges.

The petition
quoted Article 145(3) of the Constitution: “The minimum number of
judges who are to sit for the purpose of deciding any case involving a
substantial question of law as to the interpretation of this
Constitution or for the purpose of hearing any reference under Article
143 shall be five.”

It recalled that
an 11-judge bench in 2002 had held that the right to establish, run and
administer an educational institution is part of the freedom
guaranteed by Article 19()(g).

The law laid down by the 11 judges was further iterated and clarified by a bench of seven judges in 2005, the petition said.

Jaipur: The state government’s education
department on Friday constituted a committee to look into discrepancies,
if any, in the admission process of the city’s prominent Maharani
Gayatri Devi Girls (MGD) School.

It was alleged that the school charged additional tuition fee to
recover the loss incurred due to admitting 25% children for free under
the Right of Education (RTE) Act.

According to the officials of elementary education department, a
three-member committee has been formed. It will submit a report in five
days. If the school authorities found guilty, a penalty, which may be
ten times of the capitation fee, will be imposed.

“Despite giving a show-cause notice to officials of the MGD School,
they did not give a reply. We have constituted a three-member committee
to check the admission process. In case the school management charged
any capitation fee from the parents, heavy penalty will be imposed,”
said Radhey Mohan Gupta, DEO, elementary.

Notably, in the admission notification of class I for the session
2013-14 dated 01.11.2012, it was stated that a total of 144 seats are
available for class I. Of these, 25% (36 seats) was reserved for
children under the RTE Act. The 36 seats were kept under the category of
“those willing to pay additional tuition fees for another child for a
year”. Here, charging additional tuition fee for that very 36 seats will
be treated as “capitation fee”, as per the Right of Children to Free
and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.

MGD principal Suniti Sharma said, “We never receive any show-cause
notice from the education department. However, today (Friday) I came to
know that a committee will probe our admission. Everything is
transparent. They can check whatever they want to.”

PANAJI:
Uncertainty is staring Goa's madrassas in the eye. The restructuring of
funds by the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry in light
of the Right to Education Act has meant the residential schools for
Muslim children may not receive any funds for the academic year 2013-14.
The residential Muslim schools, better known as madrassas, were
provided funds through the Goa Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan for the last two
years.

Goa madrassas were entitled for 1 lakh aid for every 20 students for 10
months of an academic year, which amounted to around 75% of the funding
for the schools. The institutions had relied largely on philanthropists
for donations until the GSSA finance arrived.
The aid financed
most essentials in the madrassas like notebooks, textbooks, training for
out of school children, honorarium for teachers, teaching learning
aids, rent, electricity, water supply and contingencies.
The HRD
ministry has asked states to seek funds for madrassas through a national
'scheme for providing quality education in madrassas', which is already
facing a financial crunch.
Goa is among states that has found
the transition difficult. Only eight states have managed to complete the
processes necessary to seek funds under the scheme so far and Goa is
not on the list.
When the academic year 2013-14 begins, the
madrassas face having to go back to seeking donations to keep the
schools afloat, in the interest of the 177 students studying in the
institutions in Goa.
"We would receive the funds from Goa SSA at
the end of the ten months, but we could take a loan to run the schools
because of the certainty of the aid to come from the government at the
end of the academic year. Without the funds we will be forced to go back
to asking donations to run the schools. We will not allow the madrassas
to be closed, we will fight for our right as per the Prime Minister's
15 point programme," minorities' convener for Goa, who also runs the
Tanzim-e-Khwaja Garib Nawaz in Chimbel Shaikh Suleiman Karol said.
There are 78 maqtabs or schools where Muslim children receive Urdu and
Arabic education in Goa, but madrassas being the only full time
residential schools that provide education in these languages are
crucial to the upbringing of these children culturally, Karol said.
An official from the Goa Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan said, "According to the
RTE, the government believes that it is now the responsibility of the
local bodies like panchayats to look after the neighbourhood schools and
the funding pattern has been altered for this reason."

The
three-year compliance period for the Right to Education (RTE) Act is
just over. What has the Act accomplished? Sadly, not very much that is
positive.

A key provision in the law abolishes board
examinations and grants automatic promotion to each child to the next
grade at the end of the academic year. It also requires the award of a
diploma to all at the end of eight years regardless of the knowledge and
skills acquired. It is anybody's guess what value such a diploma will
command in the marketplace.

With rare exceptions, teachers in
India, especially in government schools, have been known for their
absenteeism and lackadaisical attitude towards teaching. Student
performance in examinations offered one last instrument to evaluate not
just students but teachers as well. Therefore, it was widely predicted
that the abolition of examinations would lead to increased complacency
among teachers and reduce student achievements. That prophecy has now
come true.

The latest Annual Status of Education Report 2012 (ASER 2012), published by NGO Pratham,
documents an all-around sharp decline in student achievements from
levels that were already low. In just two years between 2010 and 2012,
percentage of fifth graders in public schools
who can read second grade-level text has declined from 50.7% to 41.7%.
Notwithstanding the fact that 2012 was designated the year of
mathematics in India, achievement levels in arithmetic have fallen
drastically. Percentage of fifth graders who could do a simple two-digit
subtraction with borrowing has fallen from 70.9% to 53.5% in two years.

RTE proponents had opposed examinations because they produce
stress in children. But for what kind of world does such education
prepare children? A world that is waiting for them with a life on a
silver platter? Would the real world give them handsome salaries without
performance and evaluation? The solution to illness is not to abandon
bitter medicine because it might stress out the child but to
compassionately explain to her its benefits.

Unfortunately,
this is not the end of the damage from the RTE Act. Another important
provision in the law promises to do to elementary education what our
labour laws have done to manufacturing. The law requires all schools to
satisfy a set of highly demanding input norms, most of which have little
to do with educational outcomes. These norms include all-weather
building with playground, well-equipped library, separate toilets for
boys and girls, fence around the school, proper sports equipment, maximum student-teacher ratio, availability of art, health and sports teachers and minimum hours of instruction.

The deadline for these norms was March 31, 2013. The law requires
government to now withdraw recognition from all schools falling below
these norms. Even more perniciously, once recognition is withdrawn, the
government is to close down the schools.

While i do not have
ready access to concrete figures, it is a safe bet that half of the
existing schools, including many owned by the government, do not satisfy
the prescribed input norms. So if the law is enforced, half of the
schools will minimally lose recognition and maximally be closed down.
But that would surely violate many of the children's right to education.

Like our myriad internally contradictory labour laws, all
parts of this law cannot be simultaneously implemented. Therefore, it is
a fair bet that an inspector raj would soon emerge whereby bribes will
be extracted for delaying derecognition of recognised schools that do
not meet the input norms and for letting unrecognised schools stay open.
Of course, the real vic-tims will be the poor whose children
disproportionately populate these schools and will have to pay higher
fees to cover the bribes.

Moreover, just as onerous labour laws
have discouraged the expansion of labour-intensive manufacturing in the
organised sector, the demanding input norms in the RTE Act would
discourage the entry of new low-cost private schools. Just as labour
laws hurt low-skilled workers by hampering job creation, RTE norms would
deprive the poor of quality education.

It is time that the
United Progressive Alliance did some serious soul-searching and
reconsidered its approach to converting every social and economic goal
into a right. I sometimes joke that the willingness with which the
government has been obliging vocal NGOs might soon bring us a legal
right to happiness.

It is not an accident that the founding
fathers placed economic and social goals such as those relating to
education and health in the directive principles rather than fundamental
rights. Rights such as the freedom of speech and religion and equality
before law regardless of race, religion, caste and gender, originally
recognised as fundamental rights, were "negative" rights that courts
could enforce through "writs" when the state violated them. In contrast,
economic and social rights require "positive" action by the state,
which the courts cannot readily enforce.

The founding fathers
also understood that unlike what they classified as fundamental rights,
economic and social rights were not absolute and would vary over time
and space. The minimum acceptable healthcare today may turn unacceptable
tomorrow and what is acceptable to Bihar may not be acceptable to
Kerala.

Creating fundamental rights that the government neither
intends to enforce nor has wherewithal for undermines the respect for
the original fundamental rights and makes a mockery of the Constitution.

The writer is professor of Indian political economy at Columbia University.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Nearly half a century after the Education Commission headed by
Professor DS Kothari wrote its recommendations and three years after
Right to Education Act was implemented throughout the country,
educational revolution leading the way to social, economic and cultural
revolution still remains uninitiated, writes Lokesh Malti Prakash
The present system of education, designed to meet the needs of an
imperial administration within the limitations set by a feudal and
traditional society, will need radical changes if it is to meet the
purpose of a modern, democratic and socialistic society — changes in
objectives, in content, in teaching methods, in programmes, in the size
and composition of the student body, in the selection and professional
preparation of the teachers, and in organisation. In fact, what is
needed is a revolution in education which in turn will set in motion the
much desired social, economical and cultural revolution.” - Excerpts
from the Report of Education Commission 1964-66
Nearly half a century after the Education Commission headed by
Professor DS Kothari wrote its recommendations and three years after
Right to Education Act was implemented throughout the country,
educational revolution leading the way to social, economic and cultural
revolution still remains uninitiated.
Going by numerous reports and informed opinions, it appears that the
Right to Education (RTE) Act, far from transforming education to make it
the harbinger of radical change, is falling short of realising the
long-cherished goal of equalising educational opportunities for every
child regardless of socio-economic background, gender and physical
ability.
For example, despite coming into force of a law ensuring free
education, more and more people are now paying for education. A study by
Annual Status of Education Report (ASER-2012) has following to say
about increasing trend of people preferring private schools: “At the All
India level, private school enrolment has been rising steadily since
2006. The percentage of 6 to 14 year olds enrolled in private schools
rose from 18.7 per cent in 2006 to 25.6 per cent in 2011. This year this
number has further increased to 28.3 per cent. The increase is almost
equal in primary (Std I-V) and upper primary (Std VI-VIII) classes. In
2012, among all private school children (age 6-14), 57.9 per cent were
boys. Increase in private school enrolment is seen in almost all
states.”
In Madhya Pradesh, more than 30 per cent of the students now go to
private schools. The ASER report estimates that by the year 2020, half
of the children will be paying for education as they increasingly move
towards private schools.
The reason behind this exodus to private schooling lies well within the provisions of the RTE Act.
“There are several areas which the RTE Act does not address properly.
First, the role and powers of the SMCs (School Management Committee) are
not clearly established. It seems that those who have drafted the Act
failed to take into account the fact that a majority of parents would
come from poor, marginalised and even illiterate background which would
limits the role they can play in management of schools,” said Archana
Sahay, who was appointed by National Commission for Protection of Child
Rights (NCPCR) as State representative to monitor implementation of RTE
Act.
“Second, despite the fact that the Act provides certain minimum norms
for infrastructure, there is no clear mandate for improvement of the
quality of government schools. So, what we see is that the whole
discussion and concern has effectively come down to implementation of
the 25 per cent quota in private schools in the name of providing good
education.
“Third, several other issues having a bearing on child education are
neglected in the Act. For example, right to free and compulsory
education and child labour exist simultaneously because the issue is not
sufficiently addressed in the Act,” added Sahay.
The gaps as well as the contradictions in the present Act are indeed
too many. The Act talks about ‘free’ education but fails to give an
equivocal guarantee to every child for making education absolutely free
in the exact sense of the word. How can education be termed ‘free’ when
everything, except school fees, one ‘mid-day meal’ and school uniform,
the child (and his family) has to pay for everything else?
Further, by creating and recognising different categories of schools,
the Act in effect creates distinction between various categories of
children to the extent of discriminating between the children so
categorised.
“In conceiving the RTE Act, the Indian state was following two key
objectives of neoliberal economic order. First, children of different
sections of society shall have access to varying quality of schooling in
accordance with their socio- economic and cultural status or purchasing
capacity or both. This is evident from the very definition of “school”
in clause (n) of Section 2, which provides for four categories of
schools of varying quality and provisions. The second objective of the
neoliberal economic order that informs the Act is the brazen pursuit of
privatisation and commercialisation of education,” points out Anil
Sadgopal, a noted educationist who considers that the RTE Act has been
enacted to formalise the abdication of constitutional obligation of the
State to provide equitable education to every child of the country.
“All the predictions that were made three years ago about increasing
the pace of privatisation and commercialisation of education have come
true in these three years. The Act was not formulated to provide the
long-cherished right to education to every child of this country, but to
facilitate private take-over of the education system. The Act has done
this. We are witnessing schools being privatised and closed down on
massive scale all over the country,” he added.
As a matter of fact, the RTE Act has completely failed to alter the
prevailing view that government schools are bad. This ideological view,
which neglects the fact that top-class Central School, Navodaya Schools
or Excellence Schools run by the government has not only gained currency
but has been firmly established in public mind and the Act fails to
address this.
It is a known fact that the school infrastructure norms provided by the
RTE Act are downgraded norms as compared to the special category of
schools operated by the government, yet the government has failed to
implement even these in three years. The structural inequalities that
have robbed the masses of access to meaningful and equitable educational
opportunities are still firmly in place.
Clearly, the aspiration of making education a vehicle of radical change still remains far from realisatio

The High Court, on Thursday, directed private
schools to formulate necessary rules arrive at a formula for the
admission of students for the remaining number of seats after deducting
those under Right to Education (RTE).

Hearing a
petition by Karnataka Unaided Schools Management Association and others
challenging a circular dated March 12, issued by the Department of
Public Instruction specifying guidelines to fill 75 per cent seats
(non-RTE quota) in private and unaided schools, Justice B S Patil,
observed “schools are required to formulate their own rules/regulations
for admitting the remaining 75 per cent seats.

“While framing
such rules/ regulations, the only condition imposed is that the same
shall be pursuant to, in accordance with and, adhering to the aims and
objects of the school and same shall be logical, justifiable and
traceable to aims and objects of given institution to ensure
transparency in admission.”

Further, schools were also directed to formulate their own policy as well as publish their norms and category for admission.

Citing
an illustration, Justice Patil said: “Suppose there are 10 seats
reserved and there are 12 applications for them. You must select them
through casting lots.” Justice Patil passed his judgement after
government counsel R Om Kumar submitted an affidavit filed by
Commissioner, Department of Public Instruction, which stated that the
circular was based on the guidelines issued by the Union Government to
bring in transparency in the admission process.

Accordingly, the
commissioner, in his affidavit, submitted that the circular dated March
12, 2013 was issued under Right of children to Free & Compulsory
Education Act 2009 (RTE Act) with regards to procedure for admissions in
schools under Section 13 (1) and Section 12 (1) (c) of RTE Act.

The
guidelines were issued by the Department of School Education and
Literacy, functioning under the Ministry of Human Resources Development,
on November 23, 2010.

Jaipur: Nearly 1,600 private schools of the city will soon
get their much-awaited reimbursement amount of free admissions done
under the Right to Education Act.

The education department authorities held a meeting of block
education officers(BEO) and directed them to transfer the reimbursement
amount to their respective bank accounts. However, the payment will be
little for the private schools as they will get meager Rs4,500 as their
first installment.

According to an education department official, fee reimbursement of
16,446 admissions in 1,600 private schools will be done. There were a
total of 23,088 admissions shown by the private schools but after
verifying them, 16,446 admissions were found valid. Now, the fund has
been transferred to the bank accounts of block and district education
officers and they are directed to further transfer the amount in the
bank accounts of the private schools. Meanwhile, some schools of the
Dudu block have already received the money. “In the meeting on Tuesday,
we directed the block education officers of Jaipur district to transfer
the funds to schools in their respective bank accounts. All the schools
will get the reimbursement in a week,” said the official.

It is worth mentioning Rs3.5 crore will be paid for 16,446
admissions to private schools. In the first installment, the schools
will get half of the total reimbursement amount. The maximum
reimbursement has been kept at Rs9,847. However, private schools owners
are demanding they be given payment of the last two sessions also while
the government is reimbursing the fees of the current academic session.

Indore: The state government has increased the
compensation per child under the Right to Education (RTE) Act whiich is
allotted to private schools for enrolling students as per the provision
of the act.

Until last year, the government paid private schools compensation
at the rate of `2,600 per child for enrolling them under RTE Act which
has now been increased by `465.

"The compensation per child for RTE admission has been increased to
`3,065 for the academic session 2013-14," said district education
officer Sanjay Goyal.

As per the provision of RTE act 2009, the state government has to
pay a compensation of tutorial fees to schools for every student of
economically weaker section and other groups admitted under the act.

Schools have often expressed their displeasure with the sum offered
as compensation in the past, though they have never been vocal about
the same in public.

"It will definitely encourage schools to actively follow RTE Act as
amount offered is too low to meet the expenses of the children admitted
under the act and hence schools retort to it," said a private school
principal.

Over 10,000 students are expected to get admission in private schools of Indore this year under the RTE act.

But this is no solace for thousands of
parents who do not know if the fees they paid would ever be refunded or
if the school they chose would work or shut down. Worried parents are
wondering what the deal between the government and private schools is.

Basic school education is more like a
task for parents and students. With the government stating that schools
which do not comply with the RTE Act norms will be shut down, parents
seeking admission for their children in private schools are in a fix,
not knowing if their chosen school will work or close down.

The number of schools defaulting on RTE
Act is growing by the day, and parents are left in the lurch. Though the
government has been stating that hundreds of schools will have to shut
down because of their non-compliance with the RTE Act, so far, the
government had not released an official list of the defaulting schools
so that parents can browse and decide.

On the other hand, majority of the
schools are going ahead with the admission process and conducting
entrance exams, and parents are left with no choice but to rush before
it’s too late. “It’s April and June is when the new academic year
begins. The admission process has begun in schools and if we don’t
hurry, there is a possibility that our child can lose out on admission.
Since 2009, the government has been dragging its feet over the Act and
it is now confusing parents and students,” says Rajender Prasad, a
concerned parent.

Stating that for so long, the education
department and the government had given the defaulting schools a long
rope, the DEO (Hyderabad district) Chinna Reddy says, “We have been
sending reminders and circulars to the defaulting schools. Though some
of them have responded and acted on the circulars, majority of the
schools failed to do so. So we have decided to take action against them
now.”

Minister for secondary education K
Partha Sarathy, however, states that the department will be releasing
the list of the defaulting schools shortly so that the parents will no
longer have any confusion. “We have already made the list and are
waiting for the Class X exams to get completed. As soon as the exams are
done, the list will be published,” he says.

Apart from their child losing out on a
year of education, what seems to be the concern of parents is the high
fee structure which is not refundable. “I have to get my son admitted in
Class III in a new school, and I am really worried about it. What if
the school is made to shut down in the middle of the academic year? My
son will lose out on one year of his education then. Also, after paying
thousands of rupees, we will not even be refunded the amount,” said
Farzana Bhanu, a parent.

The government, on the other hand, is
not assuring the parents of fee reimbursement in case the school their
kids are studying in is made to shut down. “The main issue we have with
majority of the schools is that they do not have proper infrastructure,
like playgrounds and fire safety measures. If the schools try to fulfil
these requirements within a couple of months and show us, we will still
consider it, and only restrict action to fining without closing down the
schools. However, if schools do not comply with the norms, we will be
forced to shut them down. Regarding the reimbursement of fees, the
government cannot do much,” said minister Partha Sarathy.

Meanwhile, some of the schools which are
likely to be on the verge of closure seem to be running now from pillar
to post to get their act together. “A few branches of our schools were
denied recognition because they did not comply with the infrastructure
norms of the RTE Act. We have taken a playground on lease in an open
plot next to our school. We will submit the same to the government and
ask for recognition,” says a principal of a private school.

25% RTE quota: Government stares at inflated bill

Apr 05 2013. 12 42 AM IST

New Delhi: The
central government is faced with the prospect of a large bill to pay
for the implementation of one of the key elements of the right to
education (RTE) legislation—reimbursing private schools that reserved
25% of their seats for underprivileged children—even as the 31 March
deadline for most of the law’s other clauses have been missed.

A
year after the Supreme Court upheld the RTE norm to reserve seats in
private schools for poor children around 20 states have sought extra
funds for this. This could cost Rs.2,500
crore in the first year, rising over the next seven years, according to
two government officials with knowledge of the development who didn’t
want to be named.

This could amount to about Rs.16,000
crore or more than 60% of the current annual budget for the Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the main vehicle for implementing RTE.

“The
human resource development ministry has received demand from more than
half of the states and Union territories and they would take this to the
project approval board soon. This is the first year after the apex
court order. The requirement is only going to increase,” said one of the
two government officials cited above.

The government will take up the demands of the states as and when they are made, said the second official cited above.

“The
economic scenario is not very conducive and SSA does not have enough
allocation. We have to cut our coat according to the cloth,” the
official said, indicating that the demand may not be met in its
entirety.

For the 2013-14 fiscal year, SSA-RTE has a budget allocation of Rs.27,258 crore but the actual requirement is more thanRs.40,000
crore, according to official estimates. The human resource development
(HRD) ministry will be hard-pressed to find the money, given the cash
crunch and the increase in cooking gas prices, which has given the
ministry an additional fuel bill to the tune of Rs.600
crore. The government has reined in the supply of subsidized cooking
gas in order to curb its fiscal deficit. The gas is used to make mid-day
meals for schools in order to provide nutritious food to children as
well as ensure that they don’t drop out.

“This year we will need around Rs.100 crore and by the end of seventh year, our reimbursement bill will be at least Rs.800 crore,” said K. Partha Sarathy, secondary education minister of Andhra Pradesh.

Maharashtra education minister Rajendra J. Darda had
a similar view. In a state like his, where the percentage of private
schools is higher than the national average of 20%, the bill could
inflate faster in the years to come.

According
to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) published by education
non-profit Pratham, more than 35% of children are pursuing elementary
education in private schools in rural Maharashtra. This exceeds 36% in
Andhra Pradesh. Both state and central governments acknowledge that the
concentration of private schools in urban India is much more.

Madhya Pradesh has said it will need about Rs.400 crore in total for reimbursements by the seventh year and the demand for this year is nearly Rs.50 crore.

HRD
ministry officials hold that their first concern is the current year,
when the requirement is less. At least 25% of the schools in Madhya
Pradesh are private schools and it needs central funding to reimburse
them so that underprivileged children can pursue eight years of
compulsory education under the RTE Act, said Archana Chitnis, state education minister.

The
reimbursement issue cropped after the Supreme Court upheld the
constitutional validity of the RTE Act in a landmark judgement on 12
April 2012, and decided that private schools have to admit at least 25%
students from economically weaker sections in the neighbourhood, a
concept that government believes will promote social inclusiveness. The
government had said then that it will pay for the 25% of students to be
schooled in private institutions in this manner. “If you want an
inclusive society, society has to take the burden of this,” Kapil Sibal,
then HRD minister, had said after the court verdict. The RTE Act came
into force on 1 April 2010, with a mandate to provide compulsory
education for all children in the 6-14 age group by 31 March 2013. The
deadline is over but several of the norms, including an adequate number
of teachers and infrastructure, are yet to be met, HRD minister M.M. Pallam Rajuconceded last week.

Clothes make the man and more so, when the commissionerate of school
education believes in the idiom. In a move to teach teachers the nuances
of formal behaviour, the commissioner and director of school education
issued instructions on how teachers should be dressed at a workplace and
barred the use of cell phones during class hours. The instructions
apply to teachers working in schools affiliated to the state government
and mandates that the teachers attend the school ‘appropriate to the
profession.’ It bars the teachers from being dressed in “jean pants, 8
pocket/4pocket pants, ‘T’ shorts, round neck ‘T’ shirts, flip-flop shoes
etc.
On an inspection to some of the schools, Minister for
Primary Education and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Shailajanath observed that
teachers were dressed in jeans and round-neck T shirts which do not look
professional and hence, the new set of guidelines.
“As students
learn from the teacher, they need to be cautious about how they project
themselves. A large number of parents have complained that teachers
attend to calls in the middle of a class. Teachers act as
disciplinarians but who is to discipline a teacher?” questions V Usha
Rani, commissioner and director of school education and state project
director of SSA. Surprisingly, the very section the rule is directed at
finds it necessary to maintain certain norms of dressing.
Citing
the need to look a certain way due to the role they are entrusted with,
teachers believe that it is necessary to be an ideal role model for the
students.
“When corporate employees and doctors have a dress code
for workplace, why not teachers? Though our profession does not say so
specifically, there is a need to reflect discipline and professionalism
through formal dressing,” opines Sangeetha Verma, principal of Richmond
high School at Kamlapuri. “It is a question of our culture and social
values. The sense of casual dressing is not about young or old teachers.
In fact, a colleague of mine who has been in the profession for 20
years, comes dressed in low waist jeans which does not look flattering
while he sits in the class or bends down. However, the percentage of
such people is much lower,” says P. Ananth Reddy, headmaster of Kondapur
Mandal Upper Primary School.
He adds that the loud ringtones of
the mobiles are a major distraction in the class and there should be a
GO making it mandatory for teachers to deposit their phones in the
principal or headmaster’s office during class hours. However, some
teachers believe dressing casually is a phenomenon with new recruits.
“Nearly
a third of the new recruits wear casual clothes to school and waste
precious hours on the phone,” observes Syed Shaukat, president of AP
Primary Teachers’ Association. The catch in the process is that the
guidelines are self-regulatory and it is for the schools to enforce the
provisions. The incidence of multiple teachers neglecting invigilation
duties and smuggling in cell phones at the ongoing SSC examinations also
make it an issue to reckon with.

Bucking the trend of city schools soft-pedalling on admitting
children from impoverished families under the Right to Education (RTE)
Act, four schools are going all out to ensure the 25% quota is filled
this year.

On Thursday, the schools run by Goenka and Associates Educational
Trust in Goregaon and Thane collected 33 applications by knocking on
doors in the slums in their vicinity and informing residents their
nursery seats were available to them.
Lakshadham School, Goregaon; Playmate Pre Primary School, Goregaon;
Vasant Vihar School, Thane, and Thane Police School are among the first
in the city to follow the new RTE norms that require them to identify
and admit students from economically or socially weaker sections at the
entry level.
“Many children in our neighbourhood do not attend schools though
there are so many educational institutions in the area as families are
scared or reluctant to approach big schools,” said a spokesperson for
the trust.
On the first day of their drive, the school staff visited over 1,000
households within a three-kilometer radius —Pathanwadi, Mhada Complex
and Ekatmik Bal Vikas Aanganwadi in Goregaon, and Kalwa, Mumbra,
Ghodbunder Road, Vartak Nagar, Upovan and other areas in Thane.
The trust has published handbills in English and Marathi explaining
the application process, and has even composed a song on how school is
fun.

Around
9,281 students in city, mostly special kids, across Maharashtra who are
getting benefits under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) are affected by
the hunger strike of its 6,309 teaching and non-teaching staff on
contract.

Around 9,281 students in city, mostly special kids, across Maharashtra
who are getting benefits under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) are
affected by the hunger strike of its 6,309 teaching and non-teaching
staff on contract. The fast is being held at Azad Maidan for the past
two days.

Out of 6,309 staff, 2,508 are mobile teachers who go to the houses of special children to teach them.

The employees are fasting because they want the government to
regularise them. Around 600 of them have been at Azad Maidan since April
2. Three teachers are said to have already been hospitalised.

“The government renews our contract every six months. This too it does
after giving a day’s break between the renewal. We are worried whether
our contracts will be renewed even after 10 years of service. That’s why
we want the government to regularise our jobs,” said Sagar Gaikwad,
president of the SSA Contract Karmachari Sanghatan (SSACKS),
Maharashtra.

“Our worries have increased because in March the government removed
2,000 teachers saying it doesn’t have the money to employ them.”

The teaching staff under SSA provides education to teachers in Marathi
medium BMC schools. As per the SSA, around 65% of their expenses is
borne by the Centre and 35% by the state. Those protesting teach
students from Std I to VIII apart from improving the quality of
education.

“For non-teaching staff in some cases, the government has reduced the
salary citing lack of funds. How can one live when inflation is
mounting,” said Gosavi Shavakarn, vice-president of SSACKS.

“We had sent the proposal to Centre for sanctioning the posts. Only 50%
was sanctioned this time. We have sent the proposal again,” said Anil
Kale, director of SSA and RTE in state.

The protesting staff, however, slammed the reasoning. “It is the state
which has not given Centre the list of adequate requirement of teachers
and that is why the posts were not sanctioned. We held a meeting with
the ministers but they too failed to take a decision,” said Gaikwad.

Kale declined to comment on that. He also declined to comment on the
protesting staff being regularised. Maharashtra ministers Fauzia Khan
and Rajendra Darda who the protesting teachers spoke to were not
available for comment.

March 31 marked end of the three-year period for schools in India to
enforce and meet criteria of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory
Education (RTE) Act. Reports have surfaced that about 90% of schools in
India are yet to comply with RTE but implementation of the model in
Gujarat has won accolades from experts in the field.
Recently, Gujarat was a point of discussion at a conference in New
Delhi to mark three years of RTE Act. Founder of Central Square
Education, Ashish Dhawan, cited Gujarat as an example when speaking
about ‘RTE – Challenges and Solutions’.
Experts might have praised Gujarat but Annual Status of Education
Report-2012 says that it’s a mixed bag. ASER surveyed 692 schools in
Gujarat to check their compliance with RTE, which showed that the state
lagged in several parameters including usability of girls’ toilets,
availability of playgrounds and drinking water.
About 17.4% of girls’ toilets were unusable, while a further 11.3% of
them were found locked. Only 79.7% of schools surveyed had playgrounds,
down from 83.4% of schools in 2011. Drinking water, too, has become
scarce. In 2012, 11.1% of surveyed schools didn’t have drinking-water
facility, up from 10.3% in 2011. Gujarat, however, has performed better
in pupil-teacher ratio, overall usability of toilets, mid-day meals, and
kitchen sheds in schools.
Now, is Gujarat faring better in complying with RTE norms? MD of
Educational Initiatives, Sridhar Rajagopalan, who was one of the
speakers at an education seminar on Thursday, said that Gujarat’s
learning outcome is better than of other states. He didn’t have data to
support the claim, but said that Gujarat’s model for implementation of
RTE can be adopted by other states.
But activists do not seem to agree with praises showered on Gujarat’s model of implementation.
“Many schools in Gujarat do not seem to have basic amenities like
classrooms, teachers to mention a few,” said Sukhdev Patel, an activist
in field of education.
“Such praises seem (CM) Narendra Modi-sponsored statements, as many
consultants have sprouted to term Gujarat as one of the best. If they
really mean what they say, then claims should be supported by facts and
data. If they do not share details, all claims are eyewash,” he added.

Teachers seek fulfilment of demands

NEW DELHI, April 5, 2013

A large number of primary school teachers held a demonstration at Jantar
Mantar here on Thursday to protest against the non-fulfilment of their
long-pending demands.

Coming together under the banner of the All-India Primary Teachers’
Federation, the protesters, who were led by Federation president Ram Pal
Singh, marched from Ramlila Maidan to Parliament Street where they were
addressed by leaders of different teachers’ associations.

The
Federation, which claims to represent nearly 23 lakh primary and upper
primary teachers, has been demanding among other things implementation
of the Right to Education Act within the prescribed time-frame.

It
has demanded that each primary and upper primary school should have a
head teacher irrespective of the number of students. The Federation has
also called for abolishing the policy of public-private partnership in
school education and implementation of the Common School System.

Apart
from this it has asked for abolishing the Teacher Eligibility Test;
implementation of the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission in all
the States; bringing the existing contract/ para-teachers to the
mainstream after providing them professional training; restoration of
previous pension scheme and gratuity; and appointment of a dependent of
the family in government service on compassionate grounds in the event
of death of a teacher in service.

The protesters also courted arrested when they were prevented by the Delhi Police from proceeding towards Parliament.

What a waste

IN THE past 35 years, hundreds of millions of Chinese have found
productive, if often exhausting, work in the country’s growing cities.
This extraordinary mobilisation of labour is the biggest economic event
of the past half-century. The world has seen nothing on such scale
before. Will it see anything like it again? The answer lies across the
Himalayas in India.
India is an ancient civilisation but a youthful country. Its
working-age population is rising by about 12m people a year, even as
China’s shrank last year by 3m. Within a decade India will have the
biggest potential workforce in the world.

Optimists look forward to a bumper “demographic dividend”, the result
of more workers per dependant and more saving out of income. This
combination accounted for perhaps a third of the East Asian miracle.
India “has time on its side, literally,” boasted one prominent
politician, Kamal Nath, in a 2008 book entitled “India’s Century”.

Reasons to be cheerless

But although India’s dreamers have faith in its youth, the country’s
youngsters have growing reason to doubt India. The economy raised
aspirations that it has subsequently failed to meet. From 2005 to 2007
it grew by about 9% a year. In 2010 it even grew faster than China (if
the two economies are measured consistently). But growth has since
halved. India’s impressive savings rate, the other side of the
demographic dividend, has also slipped. Worryingly, a growing share of
household saving is bypassing the financial system altogether, seeking
refuge from inflation in gold, bricks and mortar.
The last time a Congress-led government liberalised the economy in
earnest—in 1991—over 40% of today’s Indians had yet to be born. Their
anxieties must seem remote to India’s elderly politicians. The average
age of cabinet ministers is 65. The country has never had a prime
minister born in independent India. One man who might buck that trend,
Rahul Gandhi, is the son, grandson and great-grandson of former prime
ministers. India is run by gerontocrats and epigones: grey hairs and
groomed heirs. The apparent indifference of the police to the way young
women in particular are treated has underlined the way that old India
fails to protect new India.
The list of necessary reforms is familiar. It includes measures to
streamline decision-making and curb corruption, fiscal discipline that
would free the central bank to tame inflation, and banking reforms to
recapture the saving now lost to the financial system. The government
needs to rethink its approach to the acquisition of land, on which
flawed legislation is pending, to ease investment. And it needs to
unclog the energy sector: India’s new power stations are worth little
without enough domestic coal and gas to feed them.
Such reforms would benefit all Indians and all areas of the economy.
But there is one particular industrial shift that should concentrate
minds (see article).
As China’s workforce shrinks and its wages rise, up to 85m
manufacturing jobs might migrate elsewhere, according to Justin Lin, a
former chief economist at the World Bank and now at Peking University.
Here surely is an opportunity for India’s underemployed young hands. Why
shouldn’t those jobs come to India?
The answer is that, set alongside other fast-emerging Asian
countries, India has too few of the right sort of firms or workers and
too many of the wrong rules. There are certainly some impressive Indian
manufacturers, especially in carmaking. But the likes of Bharat Forge
and Mahindra & Mahindra prefer to employ sophisticated machinery
rather than abundant labour. At the other end of the spectrum are
innumerable tinpot workshops, employing handfuls of people and outdated
methods. What India lacks is a Mittelstand of
midsized, labour-hungry firms. Even during the boom years, it created
many more jobs in construction than in manufacturing. It is hard for
India’s young to raise their sights when they are carrying bricks on
their heads.
To fill this “missing middle” the government should remove some of
the bureaucratic bricks that now weigh on the heads of India’s
entrepreneurs. These include India’s notorious labour laws which, on
paper, prevent factories firing anyone without the state’s permission.
It is true that by hiring labour from third parties the country’s
employers have blunted the law’s effect. But in so doing they have also
blunted their own incentive to train their workers—and lead to more
abuse.
And a lot of training is required. Many of India’s young leave school
ill-prepared even for rudimentary jobs. Standards are stagnant, even
slipping. By their fifth year of schooling, only half of rural pupils
can solve a calculation like 43 minus 24, according to the Annual Status
of Education Report. Barely a quarter can read an English sentence like
“What is the time?”

Anthem for foiled youth

A focus on capturing the manufacturing jobs fleeing China is not an
excuse for industrial policy, let alone a return to a Licence Raj
picking favoured factories. Most of the reforms that would help young
factory workers would help the whole economy as well. Less bureaucracy,
better schools and decent electricity would give a boost to India’s
services industry and to older workers too. But at the moment it is
India’s young who bear the brunt of their elders’ complacency.
“Why are the youth angry?” the young Gandhi asked earlier this year.
The real wonder is why they are not even angrier. In the rural districts
the government has bought social peace with public works and subsidised
food. In the cities the young have taken to the streets only
sporadically. In 2011 they rallied to the banner of an eccentric
anti-corruption campaigner. In December they expressed their outrage at
the brutal gang-rape of a young woman whose aspirations mirrored their
own. In India great hardship is often suffered in silence. However bad
things get, someone nearby is enduring worse, and even the poor are
acutely aware of how much they have to lose.
Social peace is no bad thing. But India could do with a sense of
urgency about the reforms needed to generate jobs and rejuvenate
politics. “India’s century” is not an inevitability. It is a giant
opportunity that India is in danger of squandering.